|
CURRENT AND PAST PROJECTS
In 2006, I was contracted by the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council and US Forest Service to conduct a biomass and carbon study of small diameter vegetation (<12 inches dbh) across Central Oregon. Overgrown stands are a problem in Western states, and the USFS would like to get a better handle on carbon and potential wood product markets to help pay for thinning treatments to reduce wildfire risk and enhance forest health. In February of 2007, I traveled to Mississippi to install new carbon measurement plots on Entergy company lands that had recently been planted with trees. Using ArcGIS we selected plot locations at random and then navigated to these points using a GPS. At the plot centers we collected soilsamples and measured existing trees. In addition to the carbon plot installation work, I was contracted by Entergy in 2005 to analyze more than 300 forest plots, installed as part of their Continuous Forest Inventory (CFI) program. I took all of the raw plot data and with the help of a computer programmer developed an automated carbon software program to speed up the analysis. We had a large amount of raw data for all the major forest carbon pools (trees, dead wood, and understory vegetation) from three different forestry crews across five states. It presented a challenge from a data quality point of view (multiple teams, different data entry procedures, etc), so to make sure the data was correct we developed an Access based program that applied 14 different rules to flag any errors. The rules were designed to look for anything unusual: dbh data that was outside of the nested plot diameter range, species codes that weren’t on the master list, missing data records, and other potential problems. Once we had 3) US Fish and Wildlife Service Angleton, Texas In mid 2006 I was contracted by the US Fish and Wildlife Service in Angleton, Texas to develop a forest carbon proposal. The office in Angleton is interested in acquiring bottomland hardwood stands and marginal agricultural lands to add to their Refuge system and using carbon financing to help with land acquisition costs. I developed a carbon benefit estimate for them and submitted a final version of the proposal in October of 2006. 4) Destructive sampling in Puerto Rico
In addition to these main projects, I’ve also done contract work with The Nature Conservancy’s Brazil office for the Guaraqueçaba Climate Action Project. In 2005 I was contracted by Winrock International for field services (plot installation) and support (truck, chainsaw, etc.) for a forest fuels study they had in California as part of the Westcarb project. In 2005 I was invited to be a member of the Oregon Governor’s Global Warming Subcommittee which was tasked with developing policies that could assist the state in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. I studied forests and land-use change in particular. Our team worked up a series of policy recommendations based on a review of the latest scientific research on the subject of forest carbon and climate change. And we also managed to get a publication submitted to the Journal of Forestry. It was accepted in late 2006, and should be out sometime in 2007. In 2006, I was contracted by the Oregon Forest Resources Institute to develop a chapter on carbon accounting for their 2007 book “Forests, Carbon, and Climate Change: a synthesis of science findings”. Our chapter was on Carbon Accounting (Chapter 9) Home • Projects • Carbon Training • Publications • Contact Us © 2007 Delaney Forestry Services |
|
any problems resolved, we ran the main carbon analysis part of the program. The result was highquality carbon plot data that was accurate and free of many of the common errors associated with large data sets.
In 2004 I was contracted by the US Forest Service in Tennessee for a destructive sampling study. The actual work took place in Puerto Rico. We spent about two weeks in the field and harvested 30 hardwood trees. The purpose of the study was to develop better biomass regression equations for species on the island. I worked up the data with the principal investigator and published an article of the results in 2006 in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.